


hey sister, do you still believe?

by snicklefritz



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Pre-A New Hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 16:39:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3417944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snicklefritz/pseuds/snicklefritz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four years after Order 66, Obi-Wan has an unexpected (but not unwelcome) guest on Tatooine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hey sister, do you still believe?

**Author's Note:**

> For dyingsighs, who is a sweetheart. I'm not sure this was quite as happy as she wanted it to be. 
> 
> I'm operating under the fan-theory that Ahsoka is Fulcrum, but even if she isn't, she almost certainly has something to do with the fledgling Rebel Alliance.
> 
> (Unbeta'd, please let me know if there are any spelling/grammatical errors. Also, I'm fairly new to this fandom, if I've mixed up any dates or details, I apologize).
> 
> Title from Hey Brother by Avicii.

Obi-Wan had known that it was only a matter of time before someone found him out in the wastes of Tatooine. He’d expected it far sooner than later, actually, but four years of hiding in the desert was a long time for anyone. He eyed the dark speeder warily as it manoevered the dunes, it’s trajectory clearly headed for his humble sandstone hut. The speeder was alone, and Obi-Wan could sense no other presence coming towards him. He gripped his lightsaber tightly. Just because it didn’t _look_ like the Empire didn’t mean it wasn’t some other sort of trap. 

As the speeder closed in on what could arguably be considered Obi-Wan’s front yard, he stretched out gingerly with the Force to learn whatever he could about his visitor. Whoever his visitor was, they were carefully shielding their thoughts, but as the speeder drew closer, the shields were abruptly dropped, and Obi-Wan felt the familiar Force-signature wash over him in waves. He sensed an unbroken light, a psychic powerhouse of determination, bravery, hope. A thread of recklessness, of impatience, of impetuousness. It was a Force-signature he would recognize anywhere; indeed, one he feared that he would never sense again. 

Obi-Wan stumbled out of the hut just as the speeder stopped, and when the driver removed her hood, revealing the distinctive Togruta headtails, Obi-Wan smiled for the first time in four years. 

“Master Obi-Wan!” Ahsoka cried, grinning at him as she swung herself off the speeder. Distantly, he noticed that she was taller, and her headtails were longer, but he was too busy basking in her familiar Force-energy to care. She ran over to him and hugged him, as if it were the end of any difficult mission from the Clone Wars, and he allowed himself to hug her back fiercely. Logically, he knew she had a far better chance of surviving the Jedi Purge than many of his other comrades, but supposition and theory were a far cry from seeing her unharmed. 

“When I heard about the Temple…” Ahsoka began to say as they broke their embrace, but Obi-Wan cut her off with a jerk of his head. 

“Tea first,” he said. “Then we’ll talk.” 

Really, though, he just needed a moment to gather himself. Of course Ahsoka would want to to talk about the Temple. Of course she would want to talk about Anakin. Obi-Wan lead her inside and busied himself heating water for tea, trying to gauge the things Ahsoka might or might not have heard after she left the Order.

When he was finished, Obi-Wan levitated the two cups of tea onto the table, partly to keep himself in practice, and partly just because he knew it would amuse her. She caught her cup out of the air and smiled at him. Like Anakin, she had never particularly cared for tea, but she drank it without grimace or complaint when offered. 

“You’re almost as tall as I am, now,” Obi-Wan said. Ahsoka beamed at him, self-consciously touching the top curve of her headtails. 

“I’m still growing, too,” she said proudly. “Pretty soon I’ll be taller than Skyguy.”

Obi-Wan tried not to let his smile drop, really, he did. But his lips wavered anyway, and Ahsoka felt his distress through the force even if he had managed to hide it, and she ducked her head, embarrassed. 

“Nobody knows what happened to Master Anakin,” Ahsoka said softly. Obi-Wan’s fingers tightened against the smooth ceramic of his mug. “When I sensed you, all the way out here, I thought- I thought he’d be with you.”

Obi-Wan breathed deeply, the motion automatic, though his stomach felt like it was being twisted apart by a rancor. “Anakin-” he stopped, choking on the name. He only ever said it aloud in his nightmares. “Anakin died on Mustafar.” Obi-Wan bowed his head so that he wouldn’t see Ahsoka’s eyes well with tears. Reaching out with the Force, he sent her what comfort he could, as she hurriedly scrubbed her face with her hands. 

“Mustafar. That’s where Padme died,” she said, her voice trembling. Obi-Wan nodded. Padme’s death had made the Holonet, he remembered, but he couldn’t remember what their feeble cover story for it was. He had held up Luke’s newborn face to the projector as it broadcasted Padme’s funeral on Naboo. “Never forget how much she loved you, little one,” he’d whispered, allowing himself to shed some tears for her as his ship sped along they hyperspace routes to Tatooine. 

Ahsoka sniffed, headtails shaking. “Who killed them?” she asked, an ugly, dark edge to her voice, one that Obi-Wan expected as soon as he’d answered her unspoken question about Anakin. 

“Revenge won’t bring them back, Ahsoka.”

Ahsoka glared defiantly at him. “It was Vader, wasn’t it?” she spat. Obi-Wan sighed heavily and put his head in his hands. Palpatine’s puppet was no secret in the galaxy, but Obi-Wan would bet his life that he was the only one who knew who the man beneath the helmet really was. 

“Ahsoka, promise me you won’t go after him.”

“I can’t do that,” she said. “Not after what he’s done. What he and the Sith have done to the galaxy.”

“Rushing and getting yourself killed-” 

“Who said we’d rush in?” Ahsoka said, smiling in a way that could only be described as feral. Obi-Wan immediately had a bad feeling.

“We?” he said pointedly, not missing Ahsoka’s use of the pronoun. Ahsoka’s wild grin deepened. 

“I’ve been busy since the Empire set up shop,” she said. “And so have a lot of other like-minded individuals across the sector. That’s why I’m on Tatooine- I had a meeting with one of them.” She took a sip of her tea before continuing. “When I left the cantina I thought I caught just a hit of your Force-signature in the area, and I wasn’t about to leave before I checked it out.”

Obi-Wan was glad to know the particulars of how she found him, but this ‘like-minded individuals’ business was far more troubling. “Ahsoka, are you talking about a resistance movement?” he asked bluntly, and she lifted an eyebrow at him. 

“Of course I am. It’s not like we can start a letter-writing campaign.”

Force save him, she sounded so much like Anakin. She sounded like _Padme_. 

Ahsoka leaned forward, staring at him with those wide inquisitive eyes. 

“We need you,” she said.

Obi-Wan’s fists clenched at his sides. Half of him burned to agree, to leave this wasteland and be useful again; to fight back against the usurpers, the oppressors, the murderers. The other half, the one with Tatooine sand weighing down his bones, was so _tired_. He had known death and war since he was a child, and it had taken everyone and everything he’d ever loved. Was it cowardice, then, to stay in this hut, to watch over the child of their destroyer from afar? Was it folly, to learn his former Master’s secrets of life beyond death?

He felt helpless- he felt _old_. 

Ahsoka watched him with a patience he thought she’d never learn. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. 

“Revolution is for the young,” he said quietly. He didn’t want to see the look of disappointment on Ahsoka’s face, but he forced himself to meet her gaze. She wasn’t disappointed- she was angry, her eyes narrowed, nostrils flaring. 

“Revolution is for the bold,” she said, “no matter their age. Unless you’re training Jawas in the Force, I don’t see what good you’ll be doing hiding in the desert chasing ghosts!”

Obi-Wan flinched, even as he felt her regret at her words in the Force. He forced himself to look her in the eyes again. 

“I’m staying.”

Ahsoka sagged back against the seat. Obi-Wan hated himself for disappointing her, but his mission was here. Luke was here. And for Anakin and Padme’s child, Obi-Wan would do whatever he must. 

He stood, and Ahsoka followed him, sensing that their brief, unhappy reunion was at an end. Before she jumped back on her speeder, Ahsoka hugged him again, whispering “May the Force be with you, Master,” in his ear as she did. 

“May the Force be with you too, Ahsoka,” he said, his throat constricting as he felt himself close to tears. With one last, lingering look, Ahsoka climbed back onto her speeder and took off, soon becoming a dark blur against the endless sand dunes. He stood there far after she left his sight, until he no longer felt her presence in the Force, and then he dragged himself back inside his hut. He looked at the two mugs of still-steaming tea on his table, and could still trick himself into seeing Ahsoka there, as if it really was one of the quiet downtimes from a mission, waiting and unwinding before the Council sent them back out. 

He sat back down, taking a mug with his hands, but not drinking it as he watched the dual suns begin their descent. The last rebellion this galaxy had seen, he and Ahsoka had been on the frontlines, keeping it down. Now, here they were, on the backend of the galaxy, breathing life into a fledgling resistance that wouldn’t see fruition for a decade or more. 

Obi-Wan had always been patient.


End file.
